Pilot 'inexperience' no cause for alarm

3:37 PM,
Jul. 11, 2013

Written by

Barry Schiff

If you're shocked by the seeming inexperience of the pilot whose plane crashed in San Francisco Saturday, don't be. His 43 hours handling the Boeing 777 shouldn't, by itself, be anything to worry about.

When you think about it, every commercial airline pilot effectively starts at zero hours of real flight experience in a given airplane. Given the high cost of airplane fuel these days, it's not like a pilot can take a new high-powered jetliner out for a "spin" for practice. Fortunately for the airlines and the traveling public, there is nothing inherently dangerous about this.